NT Police charge 27-year-old man with domestic violence order breach following Borroloola woman’s suspicious death

A 27-year-old man has been charged with breaching a domestic violence order following the suspicious death of a young Territory woman. Read the latest here.

Northern Territory Police are investigating the death. Picture: Gera Kazakov

UPDATE, Tuesday December 9: A 27-year-old man been charged with breaching a domestic violence order following the suspicious death of a young Territory woman.

On Tuesday NT Police confirmed a Territory man remained in custody, 77 hours after a 27-year-old woman was found unresponsive in a home at Borroloola.

NT Police said on Saturday morning officers and the local clinic responded to reports of an unresponsive woman in a town camp in the very remote community of just 950 people in Gulf of Carpentaria, 190km from the Queensland border.

Within 20 minutes of the arrival of first responders, the young woman was declared deceased at 10.50am.

Her partner was taken into police custody, with her death treated as a potential domestic violence homicide.

On Tuesday NT Police said no arrests or charges had been made in relation to her death, but the 27-year-old had been charged with breaching a domestic violence order.

Police said investigators were engaging with her family and the broader community in the wake of the tragedy.

The 27-year-old woman is the sixth Aboriginal woman whose death police have treated as a suspected domestic violence homicide in the 12 months since the landmark inquest into domestic violence.

The latest NT Police annual report said the rates of domestic violence homicides increased in the last financial year, with five deaths in 2024-25, despite a slight reduction in reported assaults.

But the data also suggested both victims and perpetrators were being trapped in an increasingly vicious cycle of violence, with domestic abuse reoffending rates spiking over the past 12 months.

In 2023-24, less than a third of victim-survivors reported being subject to further violent offending within two years, while 34 per cent of offenders were charged within the same period.

But by 2024-25, nearly half of all survivors said they had been attacked again, while 51 per cent of abusers were found to have reoffended within two years.

Two thirds of all assaults in the Territory were domestic violence related in 2024-25, according to the police data.

NT Police said the increase in reoffending rates was due to a combination of “increased reporting, greater police focus on domestic violence-related training, and internal governance enhancements, (which) has resulted in earlier identification and support of victim-survivors”.

INITIAL, Saturday December 6: The death of a 27-year-old woman found dead at a home in Borroloola is being treated as suspicious with her partner currently in police custody.

Police and local clinic staff responded to reports of an unresponsive woman at a home in a town camp, who they subsequently declared dead at the scene about 10.50am on Saturday.

The death is being treated as suspicious with a crime scene established and her partner currently in police custody.

Detectives from the Northern Territory Police Crime Division have been deployed to assist local police in Borroloola.

Police urge anyone with information that may assist investigations to contact police on 131 444 and quote reference number P25329866.